Sep 15, 2011

This recipe couldn't be easier, I used a box of Golden Vanilla cake mix, some canned pumpkin, pumpkin pie spice and water. No oil, butter or eggs added and the results were amazing!

These cupcakes are delicious naked, without frosting, but I thought creating a pumpkin spiced cream cheese frosting would be the perfect topping. If you want to get fancy and pipe it on like I did in the photos, you may have to make a little extra frosting, maybe 1 1/2 batches. But if you are making them for yourself and using spatula to smear some on, the amount listed here will be enough.

Combine cake mix and pumpkin spice in a large bowl. Add pumpkin puree and water, mix about 2 minutes.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 full and bake about 20 - 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

For the frosting, combine the cream cheese, pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and brown sugar until smooth. You can use a spatula to ice the cupcakes or pipe them which may require making more frosting.

i love cooking with pumpkin and it is the BEST fall flavor! i am having trouble finding it in the stores though. i live in michigan- has anyone else found this to be a problem? and is there anything i can do to substitute?

YUMMY! These look great Gina and I can't wait to make them! This weekend I am going to make your pink lemonade cupcakes for the last time(summer is almost officially over) but I will be making these next and looking forward to all your yummy Fall recipes! Pureed pumpkin with boxed chocolate cake mix is amazingggg also! so moist and chocolate fudge-like! These must be so delicious too, love the pumpkin spiced cream cheese icing! you're the best, thank you Gina!!

Wow, I am so happy Gina to find this recipe, we are on no sugar summersize diet, and having a sweet tooth doesn't help....yesterday I crashed the diet with 2 large superstore bought cupcakes.. felt so guilty but so good...now no reason to feel that guilty if i crash again LOL

Okay, seriously, I don't know which pumpkin recipe to make first! I love this time of year and fall is by far my favorite season. Btw the apples, pumpkin, and all the other wonderful fruit that's in right now.

My sis would flip out for this recipe. We do a pumpkin week every year on our blog (twin-tables.com) and I think I might just have to borrow your recipe (with full credit of course) for this year. Of course I might just make them and eat them too! YUM

I LOVE your blog! I recommend it to everyone! Even if I don't try all the recipes, just seeing your great pictures and ideas pop up in my google reader each day makes me happy - especially the pumpkin cupcakes today!

Thanks...these look and sound delicious. I have some pumpkin puree in my freezer from last season. I know this tends to be more watery than canned pumpkin. Any idea how I might adjust the recipe proportions of canned pumpkin/water to keep the cupcakes the right consistency? Maybe just 2 cups of the puree? or 1½ cups puree and ½ cup water? I'm really not a good judge at adjusting recipes. LOL!

I popped a batch of these in the oven as soon as I saw them. Just in time for an after school snack! I didn't have enough time for the frosting so we just put some canned whipped cream on top, delicious! I love being able to give my kids a treat that I can feel good about. My 12 year old daughter loved them Thanks for another great recipe!

I saw these and had to go to the store to pick up the ingredients after work. They are delicious! The frosting is so good. I made a double batch of the frosting and had leftovers, but that's okay with me!

Gadzooks, Gina! These look great! My 8 year old is a cake nut, so I'm thrilled to find a healthy AND tasty cake treat for him..He has not been a spice cake fan so far, but perhaps these pretty cupcakes with the fun fall theme will change his mind. I can hardly wait for the weekend when I'll have time to whip these up. Shhhhhhh.... Don't tell the kiddies that they're healthy!

@ Nicole, Not sure where you are from in Michigan, but I have had better luck at smaller grocery stores as opposed to Meijer. I live in metro Detroit, and the smaller Spartan stores have a lot of pumpkin, in fact in many different sizes of cans!Gina- my husband is on his second cupcake, I made these tonight to take to work tomorrow for my birthday!

They were amazing!!! My 2 year old even loved them. I agree that you need to make a cookbook I would buy them all. Thanks to you I now enjoy cooking and with weight watchers you are an ANGEL. I am preggo and have to limit my fatthanks to my gallbladder so your recipes have really helped me to have all the yummy foods i am cravingthanks again and get cracking on those books lol

I too usually make the canned pumpkin puree with the devil's food cake mix....and was wondering if I could mix it with any flavor cake! So that's a definite yes :) I think I will make these and add in some mini chocolate chips as someone else mentioned instead of the frosting, but the frosting does look so good. I just make your pumpkin dip for some apples!! LET PUMPKIN WEEK BEGIN haha

These look so delicious! I absolutely love pumpkin muffins (and you know, cupcakes can really just be considered muffins ;). I think I'll bake them and bring them in to school one morning to share with everyone :) Thanks for the recipe!

We're having a canned pumpkin shortage in Maryland. I need it for cooking, and also for my little mini-dachshund who has to have it every day for her special medical diet. Is the shortage happening everywhere? Does anyone know where I can find some?

Wow, so many comments I woke up to this morning, I see you all love pumpkin!!

People who don't like pumpkin don't like the pumpkin pie spice, I bet they would love them if you left that out and used cinnamon instead.

I would freeze them without the frosting.Once frosted, they should be refrigerated. I would only frost the ones you plan on eating right away, keep the rest of the frosting in the refrigerator for when you are ready to eat the rest.

Happy Birthday Wendy!

Rose, I can easily find organic pumpkin at the organic store, Libby's is really hard to find at the moment.

This is my favorite way to make cupcakes! Sometimes I will mix it up and put in some chopped nuts and fruit (like crasins or dried cherries) and make them more like muffins. SO delicious. I will have to make them frosted for the next party at work! Thank you!

I check your site daily for new recipes!! I made these cupcakes last night...delish!! I couldnt finde the golden vanilla cake and used french vanilla instead...yum!! thanks for all your great recipes!!

These sound amazing and are so low in points! I've only been able to find Libby's at Pathmark...my local Shop Rite does not have it. I went to the Libbys site and did a product search and it only came up in select supermarkets near me. Try searching near you. I have about 3 cans at home right now just in case I have trouble finding it again.

I searched this morning and found the Vanilla cake mix for the recipe. Earlier I wrote that Betty Crocker was downsizing their product for the vanilla from 18.25 ounces to 15.25 ounces and that is all they had on the shelf...Would this change the recipe?

You should have an option of shutting the photos off when you print. If you are having issues, email me.

You can make them without pumpkin spice if you're not a fan, any spice you like would work.

Any yellow, butter, vanilla cake mix should work. Downsizing their cake mix? THAT IS SO ANNOYING! It's a sneaky way of raising prices, I prefer they just raise the price! I've made this with 1 1/4 cups pumpkin and 1 1/8 cups water and they turned out fine, so I don't think it would hurt them.

i made these today! i love pumpkin. they are great!! and easy. mine stuck to the paper liners a little bit, but otherwise no problems. next time ill have to spray my cupcake liners to prevent then from sticking. still delish tho!

my sister found the pumpkin at Walmart- in 30 oz cans!! i also found a recipe to make my own pumpkin puree... haven't tried it yet, but i am excited to :) for those of you who will want to know, the recipe for the pumpkin is avaliable at http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/10/make-your-own-pumpkin-puree/

Gina,Love your recipes and make them constantly. Quick question, how many pints do you think they would be without the frosting?And for a previous poster, how many dark chocolate chips did you put in. I wonde what the point value is then?

I made this this afternoon and my, my, my they are awesome. I only had a Pillsbury SF Moist Deluxe Yellow Cake on hand so I used that. Not sure how different from your original it tasted but the ones I made tasted wonderful. WW leader told me SF cake mix was 4 PP for 1/12 so I counted these as 2PP as well since I made 24. Did not trust myself having that awesome frosting on hand so just using SF cool whip to top..yummy, thanks Gina!!

For those wondering where all the canned pumpkin has gone, it's due to wet muddy conditions during harvest the past two years. 75% of Libby's canned pumpkin is grown in Illinois and they have had all kinds of rain in fall 2009 and 2010. Libby's is the major supplier of canned pumpkin in the country, so there you have it. Keep your fingers crossed for 2011.

Just made these tonight - used the box of golden vanilla - it was only 15 oz instead of the 18oz you listed! So I only added 3/4th cup water and the 15oz of pumpkin - they turned out PERFECT. Loved the frosting too - Over on dollarstorecrafts blog tonight (http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2011/09/mind-blowing-cake-decorating-tip/) - she shared a clever trick to using plastic wrap in your icing bag to easily pipe it on. The amount of icing you had listed was MORE than enough to cover the cupcakes once i used this trick so none went to waste in the icing bag. and cleanup only took 30 seconds! So good GINA! I hope you make a cookbook soon I would rather have them all in a beautiful book then have to print everything out! I LOVE it all!

I made these yesterday afternoon. They are sooooo yummy!!! Next time I think I'm going to cut down on the pumpkin pie spice. I only used cinnamon in the frosting. I love the frosting so much, I think I will just make it for my bagel thins. How many points is the frosting alone?

I don't know what happened but the frosting was very runny for me. I tried piping it but it didn't work because it wasn't thick enough. I followed the recipe perfectly - no idea why it did this! Regardless, the cupcakes tasted wonderful - I highly recommend this recipe! My grocery did not have Golden Vanilla, so I had to use Butter Yellow. I put it a little extra cinnamon and it worked out fine. So yummy!

I have the first batch in the oven right now and they smell AMAZING! I remember there was a pumpkin shortage last year because of a bad growing season. Maybe the shortage in some areas right now is still an overhang from that. I'm going to have to go buy a few more cans to make sure I don't run out. Thanks for the recipe Gina. I can't wait until these cool, so I can frost and eat one.

These are absolutely wonderful! I just made the frosting, frosted one and gave it a try. Yumm! Although I'm usually not a big frosting fan, I love this. It's not sickly sweet like most frostings. THANKS GINA!

@ Diane - I made these with the 15.25 oz cake mix and still used 1 cup of pumpkin and 1 cup of water and they came out fine. I just found that they made less than 24 cupcakes... mine made about 18...maybe I put too much cake mix in the cups - although it looked like 2/3 and the came out like the pic.

Just finished making these! Wow, Gina! These have the moist texture of an uber-decadent fat bomb without the guilt! Tasted so rich that I was well satisfied with eating just one. I think I may put just a smidge less than 1/2 cup of pumpkin in my frosting next time. It was just a little heavier and wetter than yours looked in the picture. My husband actually wants MORE pumpkin pie spice in the cake! Guess he likes it spicy-hot.... Thanks for the superb recipe! Can't wait to show it off at work on Monday!!!

Hey Gina! I LOVE YOUR BLOG!!!! Hey about these- the only thing I can find at the store at the moment is Pumpkin Pie Filling- it seems to have all the spices already in there- should I not use the pie spice or less of it, maybe~Amanda

Made these and unfortunately they didn't come out right. I think my oven doesn't work right. My husband and I ate the tops off the cupcakes as thats all that would fully cook and they were DELICIOUS! I will write a review after maintenance comes and fixes my stove and I try these again. I LOVE your blog, your have great recipes!

I made these today, and let me give a big fat YUM rating to these. So very good Gina! I love you and your site. I have made many of your recipes, and every single one is absolutely fabulous!! You rock girl! :)

I lose track of time when I come to your web site. Thank YOU for taking your time to dedicate to this amazing journey!I tried to skim through the comments to see if anyone else has asked this question but I don't think so. I was craving a Pumpkin Spice Latte yesterday so I went back to last fall's posting & mixed up your pumpkin butter. LOVED the latte so much I made your whole wheat pancakes & smothered them in the pumpkin butter - YUM YUM!!!! Now my 5 year old daughter saw your Pumpkin Cupcakes & has requested them but my can of lonely pumpkin is made into pumpkin butter! I am wondering if you think the butter mixture could be substituted for the canned pumpkin? Perhaps a little tweak in the recipe? What do you think?Keep up the great work, Gina!

I just made these and the cake mix was 18.25 or 5, I can't remember and we already took the garbage out. The cupcakes turned out perfectly. Light and fluffy. We had to use "butter yellow" as we didn't have golden.The icing, as some others have mentioned, turned out runny. I'm not sure if it's because I had to use canned pumpkin instead of homemade puree or what. I did use less than a half cup, just by a bit. To help thicken the icing, and since I assumed that I'd need to make a double batch to use my frosting tips, I just added a second 8 oz of 1/3 Philly and about 5 T of brown sugar and about a 1 t of cinnamon. That helped to thicken it up. It still tasted strongly enough of pumpkin and spice so it turned out really well. Very delicious. Thanks so much for posting this recipe Gina! My hubby said it tastes like a Pumpkin Spice Latte ;)

I meant to say-- adding that extra cr. cheese made a LOT more extra icing. We'll probably freeze it and find something else to put it on. Shouldn't be hard to do as everything on your site is fabulous.

I am having a really tough time finding canned pumpkin. The closest I've found is a can of pumpkin pie mix from Libby's. I am hoping that the only difference is that I won't need to add the pumpkin pie spice. We'll see what happens!

Libby's pumpkin pie mix works just as well I think. I was able to find a 30 oz. can and that was more than enough for the cupcakes and the icing. I left out the pumpkin pie spice, assuming it was already in the mix. The icing wasn't as solid as I'd like, maybe I'll add more than the 8 oz of cream cheese next time. Overall, they are perfect! A big hit at our house!

These came out heavenly! I can not believe there is no oil in them. I decided to be bold and used a spice cake mix and they came out perfect. My daughter couldn't stop raving about them. She especially adored the icing. I have said it before--YOU are a cooking goddess. Thank you for the fantastic recipes and the gorgeous pictures.

WOW made these last night! I have seriously never ever made any "cake" formula that was this moist.. had to use a little extra brown sugar as the amount called for was a little too cream cheese tasting.. DELISH!!!

I just made a batch of these too- YUM! And as happy as I am that they are healthy, I can't thank you enough for the cupcake ideas without eggs- my daughter has an egg allergy so most cupcakes are off-limits for her. She has eaten 2 of these already and I'm pretty sure she's going to be begging for a third :)

My 6 year old son wants me to make these for his Birthday Party next month! Pumpkin is one of his favorites and when he saw these on the screen, he knew they would be perfect! Thanks for the recipe, I cannot wait to make them.

I cannot figure out how you get 24 cupcakes. I stretched this as far as I could and made 16. Had they been any smaller they would not have filled the muffin liners and they would have been "mini" sized. What did I do wrong?

Wonderful! Though I did fill the cups a little more than two-thirds, so it yielded 19 instead of 24 cupcakes. Oops! But I ended up with a lot of extra frosting. So that balances out to 3 PointsPlus still, right? ;)

These are fantastic! I think I like them better without the frosting, which is saying a lot. (However, I am pregnant again and my taste buds are doing crazy things!!!) My husband was convinced they were not "diet food". He even took some to work today to share. Thanks, Gina!

I made these over the weekend and they were very good. I had the same problem that others are mentioning with the frosting though. It was SO runny. I tried to pipe it on and it just came running out of the bag. I ended up having to just spread it on with a butter knife and then refrigerate the cupcakes to get them to set up a little. They were very delicious, but I am leery to make them again because of the icing issue-any suggestions?

I made these last night - wow! they are sooo good! Thanks for posting! I can't believe they are so few point plus for something so yummy! - Oh, and my frosting came out perfect!

I apparently followed the advise online last year about there being a pumpkin shortage - because I found 7 cans of pumpkin in the pantry! I'll be making your pumpkin butter and swirled cheesecakes later this week. Keep those pumpkin recipes coming! :o)

I made these and took them to work, and they got gobbled up! One question, though. I couldn't get the frosting to set up right. It was way too thin and runny - more like a glaze than a frosting. What did I do wrong?

Frosting: Maybe your pumpkin puree was too wet? I would put it on a paper towel to soak up any excess moisture. Make sure you DONT use fat free cream cheese, that would be very watery and could be the problem.

It needs to be cold, refrigerated before you pipe it. I kept it in the fridge till I was ready.

made these tonight! the frosting does taste WAAAAAY cream-cheesy. i actually only frosted 6 cupcakes and threw the rest away. should i try making it again using less cream cheese and more of the other ingredients? i promised, i followed the measurements EXACTLY, but the frosting is just not sweet enough.

Made these tonight and the cupcakes are AMAZING and perfect! I too could only find the 15.25 box, so cut the water down to 3/4th with everything else the same. I messed up the frosting though, it was runny and rather nasty tasting, lol, but I just saw your tips and I did everything wrong! OOPS! SO I'll be remaking the frosting for sure! :) I had used fat free cream cheese as I already had it on hand and my canned pumpkin was VERY runny, so will definitely use your tip for that too! Thank you again so much for the amazing recipes! I live off your recipes and just LOVE them! Thank you!

i didn't have any issues with the frosting being runny, it is true you just need to keep it in the fridge.

i just looked at your recipe for the skinny red velvet cupcakes -- you made the cream cheese frosting differently. I'm wondering if i just did that and added the pumpkin spice it would taste better (since it contains a whole cup of powdered sugar)?? my big issue with the frosting is it tastes too cream cheesey...hmm.

by the way, the man just got home and HE LOVES THE CUPCAKES. frosting and all. WIN. he usually hates desserts!!

Just made these. Delicious! The frosting is on the thinner side, but definitely not runny. It is not sweet in the way regular frosting is, but on these cupcakes it is perfect. I don't think I would even like a traditional frosting on these.

I've made many of your recipes since joining WW, but not too many desserts yet. Now with Fall beginning, I want to try some healthier desserts for school lunches and after-school snacks for the kids. Can't wait too surprise them with these later today.

i made these for a church tag sale and one thing though. do NOT putt too much pumpkin in it. use the exact amount or else it will be too moist to where it tasted uncooked. Also it will help if you spray the cupcake liners with non stick spray. My cupcakes stuck to them :o( The frosting was good as well!! But it is a MUST to follow the amount of ingredients or else you will get pumpkin overkill.

oh and i made the mistake of using canned pumpkin for the frosting. it overpowered the cream cheese flavor. Perhaps that's why my cupcakes came out too moist? I had used the kind of canned pumpkin that is use for the pie filling. i had two cans of it from last thanksgiving.

I made these last night, first time experimenting with cake mix + canned pumpkin. Not too shabby. They are very sweet and the texture is very tender/soft, but delicious plain. My frosting had a bit of a gooey texture to it and seemed too thin, so I added some powdered sugar, thinking it would thicken it. Don't. It made it "wetter." So instead we had cupcakes with creamy pumpkin spread! Thanks for all your wonderful recipes.

Just made these for hubby's birthday...L.O.V.E them! Thinking of using the frosting as a filler...yum! I have found so many amazing recipes on this site. Usually new recipes turn out to be flops in my house. So far, everything has been amazing and my husband even asks for me to make them again. I even made the Black & White Chocolate Chip Clouds for a school potluck and had many requests for the recipe :). Thanks Skinny Taste!!

I made these last weekend because I love pumpkin anything! I thought the cupcakes were great without the frosting. I think I was the only one in my family that didn't care for the frosting though! If I make these again, I will omit the pumpkin from the icing and just use cream cheese, brown sugar, vanilla, and the spices. I'd love to see more apple recipes on here too--tis the season!

Help! LOL! There is a difference between pumpkin pie filling, 100% pure pumpkin, and pureed pumpkin correct? Can I substitute the pureed pumpkin in the frosting with canned pure pumpkin? This question sounds funny but I can't find canned pureed pumpkin...only canned pumpkin pie filling and 100% pure pumpkin...and I know there is a big difference between the two. Thanks Gina!

OMG, these cupcakes are AMAZING! I usually haven't cared for the lo-fat dessert recipes I've found elsewhere, but you can't even tell that these ARE lo-fat!! and they were so easy! The only thing I might do differently would be to whip the cream cheese before adding the other frosting ingredients---I had some cream cheese lumps in the frosting. In all, FABULOUS recipe, a keeper!!!

Gina,I love your recipes. I made these tonight for my friends and they absolutely loved them. One of my friends suggested I make it into a loaf..would take longer or just 20-25 minutes like the cupcakes? Thanks

Help! I tried repeatedly to print off this recipe, using the PDF print mechanism on the page, and the only thing showing up to be printed are the comments. I'd love to be able to print the recipe....Could you please check to see if something has been disabled in the recipe printing? Thanks much!

Gina- thank you for another fabulous recipe!!! love the taste and note to self...don't use dark brown sugar as it makes the frosting brown rather than orange : ) still a mighty tasty treat though!!! also, this recipe is easily converted to a gluten-free recipe using a gluten-free cake mix and just adding the spice and pumpkin (still using the box requirements as well). my dad LOVED THEM! thank you againone quick question- how do i keep my cupcakes from sticking to the paper? am i using cheap paper or ????

I made these with a gluten-free Betty Crocker yellow cake mix. It was the 15 oz, but they don't carry a larger box. They still turned out though and they are AMAZING! I absolutely love them, the frosting is to die for. My mother-in-law makes pumpkin rolls that are a huge hit during the holidays, and the frosting reminds me so much of those! So so SO good! Thanks for the recipe--your site is incredible!!!

Just had to post a follow up to my first comment. I did remake the frosting and followed the directions this time (LOL, oops, learned my lesson that fat free cream cheese is NOT the same as the light version!) and it turned out PERFECT! Thank you again, Gina, for such wonderful recipes! I can't say enough how much you inspire me and have helped me discover the joys of homemade cooking and the extra fun of keeping it light without losing taste! I lost over 50 pounds last year and you have been such a godsend in helping me keep it off as I NEVER feel deprived!

My daughter and I just made these and they were DELICIOUS!! The only thing is that I didn't find the frosting quite sweet enough and I preferred the cupcakes without the frosting (which NEVER happens) because they were so moist. Thanks!

Hi Gina, love your blog! So many good things on here!! I just had a couple of quick questions about this recipe... I'm in Australia, and we don't have canned pumpkin or pumpkin spice here. Can you tell me what is in pumpkin spice so I can make my own spice mix? Also, would I be able to just boil and mash my own pumpkin to make a pumpkin puree as a substitute for the canned pumpkin you've used? Cheers!